Fair do's

I've always been a little suspicious of fair trade products. I'm torn between the ideas that they're just a ploy for stealing money from hippies or that if free trade and global capitalism is so good at dragging the poor kicking and screaming from abject filth then it's not needed at all. The farmers are using it as a way to upgrade their sky sports package.

Either way there's obviously been a press release issued today as The Mail, The Mirror and the Express have all copy & pasted it onto their website and passed it off as news. (Churnalism.com is my newest friend)

Obviously having copy / pasted their afternoon away the journalists (Professionals don't you know!) didn't have time to actually bother reading the article and so sold it as a positive that fair trade sales have increased massively over the past few years.

Again I'm not too bothered if people want to pay more for their bananas in the hope they're helping a farmer see how Spurs do in the Champions league, carry on Rainbow-Child say I.

The Telegraph however has a different view. They've obviously received the same press release and decided they'd actually put some thought into a story pointing out some of the fallacies that the hippies may be falling for. I'm quietly impressed with them, regardless of whether you agree with them or not it's refreshing to have an honest opinion put forward.

And my favourite honest opinion was put forward in the comments by LordBarnet, and seconded by five of his minions:

Shouldn't really laugh at him as looking at his other comments it appears he's either a mental racist or suffers from keyboard Tourettes. Tweet

Not too bright

George Arbuthnott is thick. That can be the only excuse for what might be the most retarded story ever published.

According to Professor Arbuthnott "A Mail on Sunday survey has revealed it is now almost impossible to buy a direct replacement for the old-style pearl lightbulb in any of Britain’s major retailers."


I've just been to the Co-op and bought a direct replacement for an old style pearl lightbulb. If people are finding it difficult to buy the bulbs they certainly shouldn't be allowed to install them.


There's even more light bulb madness dissected over at minority thought. Why are they making people so angry?

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Plenty to hide...

A few days ago there was a story in the Mail about a Liverpool school banning footballs from its playground. As this is just the sort of story the paper likes to drama-queen up from absolutely nothing I decided to look a little more into it and undertook my in depth investigative approach of copy / paste into Google.

Unfortunately it appeared to be an almost true account of what happened (The main difference being it wasn't 'elf 'n' safety dictators making this happen it was a Headmaster scared of being prosecuted by the parents of the precious little children and their knowledge that where there's blame there's a claim).

However during my intensive sniffing around on the subject I came across this story in the Liverpool Echo.

Really that's exactly what the story is about. A 42 year old gran caught getting frisky with the family pet - who I don't imagine is quite as erudite as Brian Griffin.

Brian Makes his move

This made me think of the Daily Mail's apparent indignity at the upcoming 2011 census. I had assumed they were firmly against it because they just can't bare being told they had to do something.

 "You're telling me I have to complete the form? I shan't, I won't and I shan't. It's probably costing me a king's ransom in taxes and is only done to please the Muslims / Gays / Public sector workers / Benefit scroungers (Circle the scape goat you're particularly angry about today.)"

Maybe there's more to it though? Maybe they don't want to complete the form because they've something a lot more sinister to hide, A.N. Wilson is dead set against it.

Now there's absolutely no evidence that A.N. Wilson will have to admit his Basset hound is his nearest and dearest - he seems more distressed at the cost, at a time it appears he's having to take a pay cut - but it does make me smile to think of all the real dog 'lovers' out there worrying about how to fill in their forms.

"No Sheba I'm not ashamed of us, but you must understand ours is a love that cannot be spoken. Now pull yourself together. Walkies!" Tweet

Restraint shown!

The Mail has shown a remarkable amount of restraint in its coverage of today's absence rates released by the ONS.

Despite the evidence being there for the shouting it barely mentioned the fact that public sector workers take, on average, more time off work due to sickness than private sector workers.

If only the same could have been said for the Daily Telegraph.

The 0.8% difference in absence rate is enough to drive many retired Brigadiers into fits of rage. Those days of absence are costing them tax pennies. If there was less sickies maybe we could afford a lovely little top rate tax cut perhaps they could pay the extra to get their gold plated blunderbuss polished by a pretty little Thai boy.

The story misses the point that if you look at the figures broken down by occupations it's the jobs that have to deal directly with members of the public, and are the lowest paid, that have are off ill the most. Care assistants, education assistants, customer care assistants, nursing assistants all paid a pittance and have to deal with the baying masses, is there any wonder they don't fancy work when they've got a cold? These are also the type of low paid jobs that tend to be full time employees in the public sector and casual workers in the private sector. If you're a casual worker and your unwell its a choice between getting paid and getting better. Therefore they're much more likely to drag themselves into the care home for a shift.

So maybe there's a lesson here - treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

Excellent.

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One born every minute

New Labour's hidden agenda to darken the complexion of the country in order to drive up its pool of voters is uncovered in todays Daily mail comment.

They've done their research obviously - you don't go around making accusations like this just to drive an anger / fear agenda - they've got their figure of "3.2million foreign born immigrants" setting up home in the UK from respected (and by respected I mean right wing pressure group) MigrationWatch UK

MigrationWatch are a pressure group who "are concerned about the present scale of immigration into the UK". So it seems to me that they might have a reason to make things seem worse than they are. An example of this is one of the quotes from their homepage "England is already, with Holland, the most crowded country in Europe (except Malta)". In a similar vein it would be correct to say that Bats, along with Birds are the most common flying creatures (except insects). It's a nonsensical piece of information that allows the soft minded pantyhose wearers of the BNP to misunderstand and scream about the UK being the most overcrowded place in the universe, or even that Bats are stealing worms from the mouths of our malnourished cock-er-nee sparraws.

But anyway back to the Mail's main point. Tony Blair's belief that the darker your skin the the more lefty your voting intention. What on earth would make the god-bothering war-monger think such a thing? Perhaps, deep down inside he's a raging racialist, who believes - despite all the evidence -  that anyone who comes to the UK does so with only one agenda; free money and healthcare. Perhaps this anger is what spurred him on to follow his jug-eared Texan friend into battle, the opportunity to reduce the potential immigrants still alive.

Or perhaps the Daily Mail just makes shit up in their regular drunken editorial Nazi dress-up parties. Richard Littlejohn has a pair of speedos he thinks were once worn by Goebbels. 

No one seriously thinks this is Richard Littlejohn voting for another story
about Gypsies in an editorial meeting

(A more reasoned look at this story can be found at Minority Report)

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End this Human Rights insanity

Is this really the opinion of the Daily Mail?



Human rights are for pussies

 To be honest I'm not really being fair to the journalists (By TIM SHIPMAN and JACK DOYLE) here. They're certainly not calling for an end to the rights of children and the introduction of compulsory water boarding for social workers. In reality they're asking - in a somewhat drama queen manner - for an end to hiding behind Human rights law; and end to people ignoring the spirit and exploiting the letter of the law.

David Cameron agrees, as he said it was "completely offensive’ to ‘have, once again, a ruling by a court that seems to fly completely in the face of common sense.’ He added: ‘I am appalled by the Supreme Court ruling.’ This was in respect to the ruling that sex offenders could be given the right to challenge their position on the sex offender's register.

I find myself agreeing with him. I don't believe there's anything you can do to stop what makes up people's sexuality, regardless of how horrific it is. So why would people be able to say they'd ' changed' and no longer had the same urges. The Daily Mail agrees with this standpoint...oh no wait a minute does it?

They were disgusted that a psychologist faced being struck off for promising to make men prefer Jordan to Peter Andre. So in their opinion you can change your sexual desires by talking and whatever else head doctors do - ink blots have something to do with it and laying down I think.

So maybe that's not their point. Maybe their point is it it bad and naughty to ignore the spirit of a law and comply only with the letter. The baddies have been poring through the HR legislation to find ways of bending the meaning and weedling their way round the aim of the legislation.

Yeah that's what's got their goat. Unless of course it's tax legislation and your trying to make money to spend on curtains in your (Insert current value of property here)
mock-tudor, home-counties, wife-swapping pad. No the official position of the DM is that it's morally implicit that you do whatever you can to avoid paying tax. The less money going into the country's coffers and the more going to Chinese purveyors of tat the better off we'll all be.

No, the real reason they're so damn mad is it's criminals that are benefiting and that - as everyone would agree is just not cricket. These people have been caught fair and square and now are crying "Oh Oh it's so unfair we were caught, what about my rights" etc etc.

Ah but that's the same position the paper takes on speed cameras. It's not fair that people are getting caught breaking the law and then getting punished.

I don't know what they believe and I don't think they do either. Some people say the editorial team put out so much crap on a daily basis because they don't have time to read any of what's written as they're too busy indulging in same sex sauna sessions and drinking Buckfast. That's what some people say. Tweet

What has been seen cannot be unseen

The Daily Quail: The PCC has told us to remove our article so we'd like you to remove any evidence it ever existed from your blog, thanks.

The Daily Mail has requested the Daily Quail removes the blog linked from t'internet.

He replied with quite some panache; take a gander.

Once something's been on the internet it never leaves. It's important you remember that the next time you're messing about with your nan's bloomers, a vacuum cleaner and your web cam.

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Did Ronnie & Maggie actually win?

In the happy 80s I remember the fear of nuclear war scaring me much more than the hordes of unemployed. It's probably because I grew up in Sheffield and watched Threads at too young an age. I was in constant fear that the evil Communists would soon be firing their death laden missiles at us in order to snuff out our freedom loving ways.

I was happy that we had strong leaders who knew that flying lasers in space would keep the scary Russian fingers off the red button.

Read his lips.

And the at the end of the 80s we won the cold war. David Hasslehof and KIT kicked down the Berlin wall and led the downtrodden masses out of the Black & White turnip fuelled life they were suffering and delivered them to the technicoloured promise land of McDonalds,  George Foreman grills and Bonnie Tyler haircuts.

Maybe I was mistaken. 30 years later, as the Daily Mail to day points out, it seems we forgot about the commies out in the east.

Apparently in ten years time communism will have surpassed capitalism as the winning formula for making money. Obviously in order to get that rich you've got to tread on a few toes, crush a few students with tanks and imprison anyone with the vaguest concern of human rights; but no one said it was going to be easy.

Did Ronnie & Maggie let us down by being more scared of these than the Russians? Could we have had a flourishing manufacturing industry here in the UK - producing top quality tat for the world - if we'd forced the Chinese to accept the free market back in the 80s? Instead of powering to world domination maybe they'd be another modern day Russia; low tax, small government, living the Big Society dream. Tweet

IDS thinks the disabled are earning too much

This can be the only reason for this headline in the Mail today

Maybe he's fed up seeing those pimped up wheelchairs being loaded in and out of Ferraris on council estates up and down the land.

I want that one.

Of course what IDS fails to realise is that if he keeps persecuting the disabled like this they'll simply upsticks and take their huge wages - and subsequent tax revenues - out of the country.

More importantly where will it leave our paralympics team for 2012? Will we be reduced to smashing Sir Steve Redgrave's knees with a cricket bat a fortnight before the opening ceremony to make up numbers?

Only IDS can stop this happening by ceasing his evil campaign (Probably supported by Glen Hoddle) against the country's proud paralympians. Tweet

Gary Glitter books his flight

The Prime minister defends his vague plan to make people provide their own services cos he can't afford to any more in today's Guardian.

Obviously one of the reasons people don't just start their own hospital or sewage works is excessive paperwork and health & safety legislation which has had little effect on safety in the workplace ( or maybe it has? )

With this thought at the front of his mind David said

  "And if someone wants to help out with children, we will sweep away the criminal record checks and health and safety laws that stop them."


Within 30 secs of this being published Gary Glitter started typing up his CV, and a thank you letter to David his king kiddie pimp. Tweet

Dangerous hindquarters

This made me smile from the front page of express.co.uk today:

The van is quite important I imagine

Not the story itself, a sad tale of someone who died for the pipe-dream of a bigger arse (I wonder why they didn't try Greggs bakery. The sausage rolls certainly have helped with my posterior enlargement programme), it's the thought of an illegal buttock and what it might do to kill someone???

I feel certain the EU are behind this travesty somehow. Back in the good old days the British kitemark stamped on the backside of a grubby student guaranteed safety for all using it. Since our Euromasters have taken charge of rump safety, and it's all in metric or something, the dangers posed have quadrupled. More so for the squeezed middle.

It's time the Express took on this important issue and kicked of the

It's an arse not a derriere!

The

campaign for British bums.

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Dream job

Over at Enemies of Reason they've found a magic way for us all to have a cheeky little dig at the Daily Mail!

They're looking for pup journalists to join their year long training scheme and want your cv and a 200 word cover letter stating why you'd be the ideal choice.

Dress smart for the interview

EoR has done a stand up job of writing an application, so I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying my hand at it and publishing here (Although if I did I would hark back to that strong 80s government that knew what it wanted, and how it's all gone to hell since that wonderful leader was forced out. P.W.Botha, what a hero...) But I do recommend you nip over and enjoy.

Update:
Looks like more people are getting in on the gig...

Primly Stable
&
Angry Mob
&
The pursuit of happYness
&
Daily Quail
&
5CC


Maybe I will write an application after all... Tweet

Definition of Britishness

In their Mail on Sunday comment piece we're privileged to see what the good people at the Daily Mail think British values are, or at least what they are not.

"Under Tony Blair, New Labour also set out to rediscover Britishness. But when they did, it turned out to be a strange and politically correct salad of equality, diversity and human rights, not actually British at all"

In effect to prove how British you are you must be able to trace your ancestors back to Bronze age tribes, treat people differently depending on who they are or what they look like and if torture's your thing fill your boots.

Sounds more like Saudi Arabia? Tweet

It's a hard knock life

Liz Jones is obviously one of life's survivors, but every so often the big issues even get her down.

As a woman in her mid-fifties she's obviously seen a lot of the world and she brings all this life experience to one of the big issues. The oil industry.

There's many things to rail against when discussing petro-chemicals; the environmental impact in terms of spillages and climate change, the shady deals and corruption when dealing with tin-pot countries, the profiteering enjoyed by regularly reducing supply or even the excessive tax burden we suffer every time we fill up the car. Liz, being the brilliant journalist she is, manages to find a new angle to expose - People who work in petrol stations at four am don't treat her like a princess.

This is the worst thing that's happening in the famously vacuous woman's life at the minute. The fact that poorly paid people don't rush around and pander to her every whim in the middle of a freezing night is her main gripe, but if you (suffer yourself) read deeper into the article what starts to become apparent is that really she's a frightened confused lady.

The main event of the story is the fact she left her NatWest card in the garage and almost drove off without it. It's obvious this mental lapse is a little embarrassing for her and so she attacks the minimum wage earning attendants for not being more helpful and leaving their post to chase her out into the freezing night. This is like the deaf old woman berating you for not speaking loud enough when her hearing aid isn't turned on.

I also find it quite comic how older people have very particular names for things. Why she insists on calling it her NatWest card and not a debit card, or even just her card. We all have them and know what they are. It reminds me of how my Nan would always insist on calling the telly the colour TV.

"Put the colour TV on" she'd say as if there were a selection of TVs I could choose from.

Liz also had trouble finding the de-icer in the shop and had to get assistance to buy it. I think this is another point angering her, the world is getting a more confusing place to live in. At the minute she can't find occasionally used items in a small shop. How long before she can't find the bread isle in ASDA?

Unfortunately for Liz it seems the long decline into age induced senility has begun. It must be a frightening realisation and it means we can probably expect more stories from her on the bewildering complexities of the modern world. Next week's column from Liz "Why can't I get TENA lady to match my expensive handbag?"

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All the answers are right here

A completely predictable consequence of the government's education policy has been reported in today's Daily Telegraph.

The Everyday Champions Church in Newark, Notts has applied to set up a free school where they will teach children in line with the word of the lord in the bible, but - being set up in an industrial estate - will focus on business skills such as money changing in temples.

Pastor Gareth Morgan, the church's leader, told the Independent: "Creationism will be embodied as a belief at the Everyday Champions Academy but will not be taught in the sciences. Similarly, evolution will be taught as a theory."


Aside from the obvious point that evolution is only a theory, so could only ever be taught as such, it's obvious that the pastor believes that theory is a veiled way of saying something is false. This demonstrates the danger of allowing any nutcase to set up a school with only minimum guidance on what they had to teach and how it should be taught.


Given enough money you could set up your own school and teach whatever you like. A generation of children will be spilling into mainstream society with some extreme views of reality, and some rather dodgy engineering skills.


The bible states that  π = 3 so we could end up with some creative sewer sizing. Also some pretty interesting medical practises such as treating leprosy with bird and lamb's blood instead of powerful drugs.


Obviously it's not only Christian idiots allowed to set up schools, muslim whackos can teach sex education in an interesting way by insisting the thick man semen forms your bones while the woman's thinner semen is fine for flesh and blood. Might as well have a pop at the Jewish too while we're here, the school visit to London zoo looking for the four footed birds will be a big disappointment.


In fact it's not just religious crazies either. The David Icke academy's defence against lizard men classes will become popular in the lead up to any royal visit to the area. BNP's white only schools will eventually come under pressure to explain the educational value of a needlework class devoted to making white pillow cases and a woodwork class that only teaches children to build petrol soaked crosses, but what will we be able to do to stop them?

ET enjoyed his BNP needlework class

We need to brace ourselves for a generation of idiots coming soon.



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The madness continues

I never meant this to turn into a crusade but those crazy canines won't let it go. The foxes are now attacking our celebrities.

Super-TV-Hero Ben Fogle is the latest victim of the animal's never ending quest to take a piece out of every person in the country.

As the article states;

 "Fogle has presented numerous programmes including BBC's Animal Park, Wild In Africa, Countryfile, Crufts, One Man and His Dog and Extreme Dreams."

So this fella knows his way around a beast (That's not a slight against his missus by the way) and yet he was still a victim.  This shows the strength, guile and hate within the mind of man's greatest enemy.

How much longer must the government delay my right to fight back? The only language these psychopaths understand is a pack of (remarkably friendly to people) killer hunting dogs.

Or could there be another way? My research - prompted by the raging fear of being mauled to death I've recently developed - has uncovered another weapon in our armoury, in an unlikely package - Hairy American rock band Creed

According to some bloke on the internet (so you know it's true) a 13 year old Norwegian boy fended off a wolf attack by playing them a blast of his favourite post-grunge bad boys.

Wolves are more sophisticated than our British foxes so it won't take such a credible guitar based attack vehicle as Creed. I imagine we could enlist out of favour 70's superstars Status Quo.

That's right Basil I'm coming for you

Three chords is their weapon of choice and once the onslaught begins there won't be enough bins for the evil ginger maniacs to cower inside in the land.

There's not an animal alive that can act nonchalantly while faced with a never-ending wall of "Whatever you want". It worked in Guantanamo Bay, it'll work in Guildford.

Game over Basil.

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They're reading this blog...

..I'm in for it.

After pointing put the cuteness of a pack of hunting dogs yesterday and their penchant for licking babies those vicious little fox bastards have got in on the act.

Today's Daily Mail has a frankly terrifying video showing in great detail the lengths these beasts will go to mimic friendly animals in order to ingrate themselves into your trust, get inside your house and then eat your babies.

WARNING - the following footage may not be suitable for those of a nervous disposition.

As the newspaper itself points out; "Stupid it may be, but with its long pink tongue and high-pitched yelping noises, no-one would want to be the other side of the glass."

That's right nobody would want to be on that side of the glass. Inside their own home. Within slurping distance of this wild murderer as he licks the blood of your brethren off your very own patio doors. He's laughing at you. That's what the high-pitched yelping is. The maniacal laughter of a nonchalant attack fox.

Notice halfway through; that brave, brave cat sneaking past the fox. I imagine it is probably sneaking out more vulnerable family members away from Mr Fox's world of pain.

Well I for one am not going to be threatened by any hedge dwelling bin thief. The time has come people to take the war to the woodland. I urge all of you, man, woman & child, to put on some weight, mate with your sibling, blow a trumpet and kill a fox.

Yeah you like that Basil? I'm coming for you as soon as I've polished my horn.

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Basil Brush must be stopped

This island of ours, for years a safe and tranquil harbour from the dangers of the world, is being over run - and no one is safe.

Wild animals are taking advantage of our good nature and are attacking people left, right and centre. In the latest horrifying episode a woman was attacked by a carnivorous predator in Fraddon, Cornwall.

These beasts, close relatives of the wolf, are not only attacking innocents but doing it with an attitude.

"She got out of her Peugeot 206 after the nonchalant fox, sitting in the middle of the road, didn't move when she honked her horn"

That's right. We're dealing with a nonchalant attack fox. Great white sharks, Funnel-web spiders, Bengal tigers, Grizzly bears and Black mambas are but weedy little mummy's-boys compared to this red devil.

I will kill you with my nonchalance

The evidence is there for all to see. The truth bringer Daily Mail has had 25 stories about the dangers of foxes attacking people since May last year.

The reckless abandon of the last government to ban hunting these insane killers has to come to an end. It can't be a coincidence the fox attacks have increased since the election, they know their days are numbered.

As retired in Malta rightly says;

"Government listened to “Do Gooders” who think it isn’t right to hunt poor little foxes in order to limit their numbers. Consequently problems like this one arise as more and more foxes move into urban conurbations!

- Retired, Malta, 2/2/2011 13:07"

It's plain to see that the only way to deal with this very real threat to us all is to let rich inbred fat bastards hunt the blood-addled assassins on horseback with a pack of hunting dogs (They're completely safe by the way. If you put a sleeping baby in with them they'd probably lick it to death. No not death, death's bad. Lick it to oh let's say happiness, but not like that. We're talking about a baby for god's sake)

Basil Brush's time is up.

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Snitch mapping

 The DM is covering the launch of a new Home Office initiative allowing people to search by their (or anyone elses...) postcode to see the number of reported crimes.  Go to police.uk and enter your postcode.  This of course has sent the DM readership into a frenzy which in turn took the crime mapping site down.  Read more at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1352454/Crime-map-website-First-step-solving-problem-identifying-it.html

But of course crashing the site due to the high demand has enabled the DM to eek out another story from it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352354/Police-crime-map-website-crashes-75-000-people-MINUTE-log-on.html

As most normal folk don't give a rats ass they have taken to quoting their own comments section to pad out the main article:

Frustrated, readers aired their anger at being unable to access the website at MailOnline. One posted 'It doesn't work and won't load; and don't tell me the server is overloaded. Things either work or they don't.'

(Don’t tell me there’s no petrol in the car. Something either works or it doesn’t.)

A short while earlier one wrote 'Someone has nicked the server' while another posted 'Doesn't even load! Stupid website.' - Could Homer Simpson be commenting on Mail online?

In true DM style Dave from Chorleywood is my favourite commenting; "What a load of rubbish - what it is mapping is how many complaining babies there are in your street who would soon call the police than sort the problem out themselves i.e poeple [sic] with no back-bone or sense of self reliance or self respect I prefer to call it snitch mapping."

Of course what we don’t know about Dave from Chorleywood is that he’s a world renowned consulting detective and he doesn’t need any help from the woefully incompetent police force. God love him and his bloodhound style nose for burglars.

I actually prefer the term ‘Ghetto-forming’ to snitch mapping. All it would take is one drunk to run down a street whacking cars with a tennis racquet and bingo, a dozen crime dots appear on the map and people start avoiding the area. Before you know it it looks like Kabul and there’s packs of wild dogs roaming the streets attacking honest to goodness tax payers. Something must be done, won’t somebody please think of the children / houseprices. Diana / Thatcher / Hitler / Suri Cruise wouldn’t have let this happen. Gordon Brown must be made to pay.

Sorry - don't know what came over me then I suddenly had the feeling that all my woes were down to anyone with less money than me. Bastards.

 Thanks to GG for some top quality spotting.

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It's not all fun and games

A distressing story published at No Sleep Till Brooklands from a 'non-celebrity' victim of the DM's never ending quest to make people less happy.

Complete lack of Morals? Tweet